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Crisis of Faith - episode: 261713

Narrated by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Amy Grant, CRISIS OF FAITH examines how slavery and biblical interpretations on its morality divided religious denominations and ultimately, the nation, in the Civil War era. Most Southerners deemed slavery integral to their way of life, and the Bible seemingly reinforced this belief. Christian figures in both the Old Testament and the New Testament never object to, nor do they condemn, the practice. Abolitionists, meanwhile, viewed slavery as an evil inconsistent with values of Christianity. In interviews, prominent religious scholars and historians discuss the evolution of arguments over slavery - from the rhetoric of freedom and equality stoked by the American Revolution; to the divisions of the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches into northern and southern factions; to the dividing of the nation and the eruption of Civil War.